Politics and Musings Live with former Senator Al Franken

What A Day

Crooked Media

News, Daily News

4.6 • 12K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few weeks ago, What A Day took a trip to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle, Washington, for a conversation with former Democratic Minnesota Senator Al Franken. His path to politics is a fascinating one. He transitioned from being a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live, a role he held from 1975 to 1980 and from 1985 to 1995, to a prominent figure in the political arena.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Friday, June 20th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. On today's show,
0:06.8	we're doing something different. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with former Minnesota
0:11.5	Senator and Saturday Night Live stalwart Al Franken. Al Franken has had perhaps one of
0:16.2	the wilder journeys to politics. From 1975 to 1980, and from 1985 to 1995, he was a writer and performer
0:24.0	on Saturday Night Live. But after getting into liberal politics, including a brief stint at Air
0:29.1	America, and a few books like Rush Limbaugh as a big fat idiot and other observations, great title,
0:35.4	he then ran for the Senate in 2008 against Republican Norm
0:38.7	Coleman, and he won by 312 votes, one of the closest winning margins in Senate history.
0:45.9	How close? Coleman didn't concede the election until June 2009. Franken left the Senate in
0:52.2	2018, but as you'll hear, he still has a lot of thoughts about
0:56.3	politics and comedy, including his efforts to help one Republican senator tell better jokes
1:00.8	and how he's trying to help the Democratic Party reach out to male voters. We spoke at the
1:05.8	Cascade PBS Festival in Seattle, Washington. Here's our conversation.
1:11.4	Hello.
1:14.9	Thank you so much for being here.
1:16.8	I'm so excited to be back in Big Ten Country.
1:22.3	Welcome to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival.
1:25.3	I'm Jane Koston, host of Cricket Media's Daily News
1:28.0	Podcast What Today? And I could not be more excited to introduce my guest. You know him from
1:35.9	Saturday Night Live and the United States Senate, Al Franken. So, Senator, or should I call you Al?
1:51.4	Fellow podcaster?
1:54.1	Call me what my grandchildren call me.
	...

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